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Misty the dinosaur heads to Denmark

By Staff, AFP

Posted:
12/17/2013 09:43:41 AM MST

In this file photo taken on Nov. 19, 2013, the skeleton of a diplodocus longus, one of the most iconic dinosaurs and one of the largest animals to have walked on earth, is displayed at Summers Place Auctions in West Sussex, England . (Andrew Cowie/AFP/Getty Images)

COPENHAGEN – A rare full skeleton of a huge diplodocus dinosaur sold in Britain last month was bought by the Natural History Museum of Denmark, the institution said Tuesday.

“I'm very, very happy — and I know the former owner is too — that it's coming to a museum,” said exhibition manager Hanne Strager.

“It will come to a place where people know how to take care of fossils, and where researchers from around the world will have access to it, as well as the public,” she added.

Nicknamed Misty, the 150-million-year-old fossil was sold for $630,000 at an auction in southern England.

The female skeleton, found in Wyoming by the young sons of famed dinosaur hunter Raimund Albersdoerfer, is one of very few full diplodocus skeletons to be found.

“There are six or seven more or less complete skeletons of this species in the world,” Strager said.

The only other one in Europe, at Frankfurt's Senckenberg museum, had been assembled from two different skeletons, she said.

The Diplodocus Longus was a peaceful, plant-eating giant that lived in western North America around 150 million years ago, the University of Copenhagen said in a statement.

The Danish museum was able to buy it thanks to a donation from the Obel Family Foundation.

Removing the skeleton from the United States was legal since it was found on private land, and federal law only bans the export of fossils found on federal land.

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